accent and dialect Flashcards
what is idiolect and sociolect?
idiolect : the way we speak / pronounce
sociolect : language spoken by a social group e.g. friendship group, class, ethnic group, family
effects / factors of our idiolect?
social life / friends, genetics, birth place, where you live, parents, media, judgement
Accommodation Theory by Howard Giles?
The theory that speakers seek approval in a social situation and are likely to change their speech so that it is similar to their listener.
If they don’t want to be associated with the speaker, they may change their speech to show they’re different.
what is RP?
Received Pronunciation. Esteemed / prestigious
Les Parrott ?
-says that wearing the right clothes does help form teen identities by expressing affiliation with specific groups
-other factors; through forbidden behaviours (smoking & drinking)
; through rebellion
; through idols
; through cliquish exclusion e.g. unattractive features
Joanna Thornborrow?
“one of the most fundamental..”
“one of the most fundamental ways we have of establishing our identity, and of shaping other people’s views of who we are, is through our language”
this ‘use’ includes lexical choices, grammatical constructions in speech, variations in phonology
BBC ARTICLE - Stephanie McGovern
- was written in 2013
- Stephanie McGovern works on BBC breakfast
- she’s deemed by some people in her work as unsuitable because of her Teesside accent
- business journalist for 10 years but viewers still believe she’s too common for telly
- people assume she hasn’t got a brain
Trudgill - speech community ?
“totality of linguistic varieties used in different social contexts by a particular community of speakers”
not age - communities
criticisms - vague
what is a speech community?
a group of people who share the same patterns of language use
Eckert - defining age?
- she found people’s language was often affected by important life events. Therefore, we cannot assume all people of a certain age speak the same.
She defined age in 3 ways
How did Eckert define age in three ways?
Chronological age : age since birth
Biological age : physical maturity
Social age : events such as marriage or divorce
Definition of syntax, pragmatic, phonology and semantics?
Syntax - order of sentences
Pragmatics - context
Phonology - sounds
Semantics - meanings
Gary Ives Study?
- according to him, the answer is yes to ‘does age affects language use?’
- spoke to 63 students in a few West Yorkshire schools - all said yes
- the student assumed as we got older, we’d stop swearing, use more standard english, become more posh
what is code switching?
mixing languages
Eble (1996) quote?
“slang is an ever changing set of colloquial words and phrases that speakers use to establish or reinforce social identity or cohesiveness within a group or with a trend or fashion in society at large”
slang words / phrases statistics?
crime/criminal - 5000 words
men - 2100
policemen - 1000
money/rich/poor - 3300
killing/murder - 522
positives of slang?
- bring us closer together
- express yourself
- euphemisms
- take off pressure / easy / convenient
negatives of slang ?
- people may feel left out
- informal
- lead into taboo
- stereotypes
- lead into negative behaviour
- effects our punctuation
Why do people use slang?
Eble (1996) ?
Argue that slang is used by speakers for the purpose of creating or reinforcing relationships with a group or trend
Klerk (2005) ?
-young people seek to establish new identities
-patterns of speech previously modelled on adults are slowly eroded by patterns of speech by their peer group
-establish themselves as different
Jenny Cheshire ?
Agrees that it wasn’t just chronological age which affects our language
“develops in response to important life events”
Mary Kohn (2016) ?
-argues that teen speak is not ruining our language
-helps bond with other ternsb
-helps communicate with audience
-natural process of language change
-part of being human
bidalectalism?
the ability to use two with dialects of the same language, people adapting their language to meet the needs of a different situation
Gary Ives (2014) ?
London and Bradford…
- ppts questioned about language and dialect
- 8 teenage boys
London / wide range of ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds / % of EAL students is significantly above national percentage / afro Caribbean
Bradford / 95% Pakistani backgrounds / majority from Mirpuri - large city surrounded by villages and farmland / ‘everyone speaks like this’ / ‘its natural’ / mix pujabi and english e.g. bare, sick
what does over prestige and under prestige mean?
over prestige - generally socially acknowledged as standard english ‘correct’
under prestige - non-standard varieties. Not usually accepted by everybody e.g. youth language
What is Cheshires Reading Study (1982) and her findings?
Teens who use non-standard forms of english, have different social ‘norms’ e.g. fighting, swearing, criminal activity, carry a weapon. This study is all about social groups, not necessarily age.
Findings - The more non-standard they speak, the more likely they are to deviate from social ‘norms’ - Any criminals in the study all use non-standard forms
- If they disapproved of criminality, they used non-standard less
This suggests that language correlates to our social economic status and group
Eckert’s Jocks and Burnouts (2000) study and findings?
Criticising Labov for narrow categories (age, gender, social class)
Eckert came up with the idea of social practice
-She observed friendship groups in a school in detroit
-She establishes two extremes - Jocks and Burnouts with a mix of social class
-Jocks are actively engaged in and enjoying school life while burnouts are the opposite (rebellious)
Findings - more non-standard english from burnouts - not social class/age just social practices - standard english and better english from jocks
Both studies believe that a persons social group effects their language
Criticisms - only looked at two groups
- artificial / forced to go to school
- change their language based on the situation
Nicholas Copeland ?
Peoples language depend on the context of the situation.
We will code switch and accommodate.
It’s more about the social group that youre talking to rather than the main social group you identify with
What is a prescriptivist ?
everyone should use standard english and believe non-standard is devaluating english
What is a descriptivist ?
you should embrace how you speak because language is fluid and creative
What is non-standard utterance ?
imperfect english
What is syntax and morphology ?
syntax - the order of words in a sentence
morphology - the form of words e.g. ‘youse’ not you
The Bristolian Dialect examples ?
add -s to some singular forms, I likes, You likes, similar to scouse dialect ‘youse’
What is multiple negation ?
when a sentence or utterance contains more than one negative. The idea that two negatives make a positive
Jenny Cheshire and Viv Edwards (1997) ?
‘them’
- ‘them’ used as a demonstrative by 97.7% of schools who took part
- highest % of any dialect variation
- national survey on dialect
- also common in America
Estuary Twang - Guardian 2015
- “lessening or emphasising our regional accents… depending on the social situation”
- labour leader using ‘gotta’ in order to impress and be one with the people = unintentional or intentional reaction
Thomas Pear (1931) ?
- People have different perceptions of a speaker according to the accent they heard them talk with
- Howard Giles
- Matched Guise approach
- 1971 had british teenagers listen to an argument against the death penalty and are more likely to value the argument if delivered with a prestigious accent
- 1975 - Giles had this approach when researching the perception of RP and Birmingham accent by two groups of 17 year olds
Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks in 2002 ?
- We perceive people differently depending on their accent
- Birmingham accent used as non-standard
- Listened to dialogue with policeman and suspect
- Some listened to suspect with significantly more guilty with a Birmingham accent
Seliman, Tuca and Lambert ?
Teaches perception of students are heavily influenced by accent
Choy and Doad ?
- School setting
- Teachers making judgements about intelligence, ability and personality based on accent
What is Dialect Levelling ?
- It is the reduction of elimination of marked differences between dialects over a period of time
- Normally caused by contact between dialects often because of migration, more people are socially mobile
- Results in an overall reduction in the variation a diversity of features, accompanied by an increase in the similarities between 2 or more dialects in contact with each other
- Paul Kerswill came up with the theory
- More likely to see in big cities
- Arguments against = diminishing diversity and potential loss of cultural identity among speakers of a specific dialect, moving towards a more national dialect.
What is a social group ?
individuals who share interests with others
What is a sociolinguistic ?
the study of the relationship between language use and social factors
How many social classes are in the UK according
to Fiona Devine and Mike Savage ?
7
What is Petyt’s Bradford Study ?
h
- The way people pronounce words
- Looked at people dropping their ‘h’s
- Also looked at the received pronunciation sounding words like ‘good’
- He found that ; the lower social class you are, the more likely you are to drop the ‘h’ , socially aspirational speakers dont use the correct sounds in words
What is convergence and divergence according to Howard Giles >
convergence - reducing social differences
divergence - deliberately emphasise the difference - class
Basil Berstein - elaborated and restricted code ?
- defined class as elaborated and restricted
- elaborated = higher class
- restricted = lower class
- cant succeed if you use restricted code
- middle class can use both while lower class cant
Peter Trudgill - Social Class ?
- The higher the class, the more likely to use standard forms
- Higher class would use ‘ng’
- Class is a bigger factor than gender
Labov - NYC - Social Class ?
- The ‘r’ sound after a vowel
- Visited 3 stores in different classes - Sax, Macy’s and Cline’s
- Found out that lower middle class were over prestiged and changed their voice - conscious
